If you take these statement literally, it can’t. However, this is just a legal fiction, where you first pretend that Civil Rights Act applies equally to all races and sexes, so that it is not ruled unconstitutional, but then in practice you designate some races or sexes as “oppressed”, and give them special privileges, and others you designate as “privileged”, and give them no special privileges.

This is how this is all widely and commonly understood: if you ask around whether “white men” are a “protected class” according to Civil Rights Act, most people will say that they aren’t. They in fact are, but that’s just the “fiction” part of the legal fiction here.